In Hiding
by serpensortia1
Summary: Shadows in a room can hide you, but not forever. When things go wrong, people start wishing for a different type of shadow to protect them. (Dark and religious themes. AU.)


Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all associated names, books, films and merchandise are not mine. As if!

Warning: This fic deals with dark themes and uses religious text/content. It's also fairly AU based. If you have a problem if any of this (especially with the religion), then please don't read it. I'm not here to offend anyone's beliefs in any way at all - whether you're a Christian or otherwise - respect to you all? ^-^;; 

***

**In Hiding**  
  
  
The wand was pointed at his throat. He didn't move, he didn't even shake. He'd looked death in the eye before, even when death couldn't quite see him. The invisibility cloak around him had patches burned into it, holes where - if he was not careful - would reveal a quick glimpse of a hand, his stomach, perhaps his leg with it's short trousers that stopped just above his ankles. Moving would unsettle the fabric, but…it was clear to him how he would have to move to get out of the situation.  
  
The wand outstretched in front of him wavered downwards for a moment, as it's holder turned sharply at some sound behind them from the old dirty windows that let little light into the dwellings of Little Hangleton. This had both it's advantages and it's disadvantages – it was something that he knew well, before entering the small village. Both were weighed out carefully before the moves were made – was it worth walking into a place like that just to rescue one boy, when it was the stronghold of Voldemort? Who knew what traps were laying there, just waiting for them to walk into.  
  
But it was the shadows in the little rooms with dirty windows that decided it. They were the perfect areas to hide in, they would aide anybody trying to work their way further into buildings. Of course, they would do the same for any death eater, who may be lurking in another shadow, waiting for someone else to trip.  
  
He hated the waiting. He hated hiding out, under an invisibility cloak that wasn't even his in the first place. It felt cowardly when everyone else had nothing of the sort to protect them…and he just didn't like the feeling that it gave him. Having people look through you, or having people know you're there but still not see you. As was the case now. He knew the feeling all the same, he was used to it, especially when he was younger, but that didn't mean he had to like it. He still hadn't even become accustomed to it, let alone anything more.  
  
He moved slightly to the right of him, and back a little towards a dusty, poky corner under a staircase. Hiding. The death eater didn't move. But another one behind him did, as he clumsily trod onto a black leather boot.  
  
"Shit…" He whispered as if he'd just painfully stubbed his toe on a corner cabinet. Maybe it was because he was expecting immediate pain upon collision…or perhaps it was from the shock that somebody had been there all along and he hadn't realised, hadn't really had the chance to look behind, he reasoned. But that was a stupid error to make.  
  
He skidded across to the other side of the room, as arms veered out towards him, and a curse was flung just above his shoulder and right next to his neck. Anyone smaller than he was would have been hit smack in the face, but he'd been blessed with height – something that he'd always considered a bit of a curse more than anything in the past, but now it the most wonderful gift he could ever have been given. Gold couldn't pay for your life. He found himself trailing up the staircase and opening the first door he found, shutting himself in the room.  
  
If the other rooms were dark, they were nothing compared to this. It wasn't even a room, it had no windows, no bed, no nothing, except for a few shelves and pipes half attached to the walls. There was no way out, bar the door that he was desperately leaning against and aiming any locking charm he could think of at. There weren't very many that came to mind, that could withstand two grown men manually removing the door.  
  
Panic tingled in his fingers and shivered up from his toes. He was about to face his last moments on the earth in a tattered old linen closet. He closed his eyes against the blackness, finding it too hard on his eyes. "Incline your ear to me…" He whispered breathily against the thundering at his back. "Hear my speech…wondrously show your loving kindness –"  
  
"Little rich kid, with your invisibility cloak – it can't hide you now!"  
  
He felt sick at the voice. He didn't know who it was, but it was clearly a woman behind one of those masks. He was a little old fashioned perhaps, and very naïve in the way that he always thought of fighting and evil has a masculine thing…but it seemed so wrong that they could be that way when the majority of them were the sweetest little things in childhood. What could possibly have happened to them to make them put on a heavy, dark cloak and suffocating mask and hate so much?  
  
Or maybe he was just frightened so much that any voice behind the figure he was faced with would have nauseated him.  
  
The pushing at the door came to an abrupt halt, as two new voices entered the scene.  
  
"It's male for sure!"  
  
"Is it Potter?"  
  
"Potter? Certainly not. The state he was in…couldn't move even if our lord permitted him."  
  
Harry…he was there for Harry, as a friend – save Harry from Voldemort, don't rely on him to keep getting himself out of these sort of situations again and again.  
  
"Open up the door. Potter's gone."  
  
But again and again that's exactly what Harry did. They'd be so disappointed when they saw the face behind the invisible fabric – squarer, brown eyes, a tiny scar on the nose courtesy of a well aimed bludger…nothing like Harry Potter. But that all meant that Harry had to be alive…Harry had to be ok.  
  
"Saviour of those who take refuge –-" The door swung halfway open on him before he pushed it back harshly, with all of his strength " –at your right hand…" He murmured the words in himself, a mantra for Harry's safety, for his safety.  
  
They blasted the door and he felt the sharp stab of pain at his back, as one of the wooden splinters shattered into him. Three death eaters crowded around the door frame, blocking an escape. Not that it mattered, they could follow his harsh breathing from a mile off.  
  
"Lacarnum Inflamare." The female voice calmly stated, wand pointed at him.  
  
At once the flames surrounded him, Harry's cloak burning into nothing on the floor…it was Harry's father's cloak, it had always faintly smelt of someone that they didn't know. Harry would be crushed. He'd taken, ruined and burnt the treasure into nothing, not even a memory.  
  
His arms covered his face, to shield himself from the flames and the gaze of the death eaters, his elephant grey covered robes falling perfectly over his face and neck. And although he wouldn't admit it, they were covering his fear from people who would exploit it the moment they sensed it.  
  
Footsteps thumped away from the door. "It's a Weasley – the Potter boy's friend. I'll send a dementor and leave you to deal with him. Search the rest of the building afterwards - strike anything that moves."  
  
Percy had given him the robes he was wearing for his last birthday. He'd laughed, scoffed at them; 'They're the same colour as all my other robes Perce!' he'd stated, comparing them to the faded grey of his everyday robes. Percy had pushed his glasses onto his face before haughtily replying 'They most certainly are not! These are meant to be this colour.' They were his favourite robes. They'd smelt new, and felt smooth, rather than bobbled and warn. He'd never told Percy how much he liked them really.  
  
He wore them at Christmas though, when he'd gone back home for once, to share his Christmas with his parents. Two years previous, his mother had developed an odd habit – she'd started to attend the church three miles from them. She didn't go there every week, but once a month at least she had started to go and just sit, reading their texts and prayers. She'd made them all go there for Easter celebrations that year, but nobody had understood why she liked it, it was all just a joke. Ginny thought it was boring, Percy said it was illogical, the twins thought it was like some giant lab for them in experiment in, Bill said the architecture had needed restoring, Charlie didn't even bother to come and his father complained about the cold.  
  
Ron had just been confused. He didn't understand what his mother was gaining from it all…just didn't understand. But as time went on he grew up, he had learnt so much, things progressed in the world for the worse and then he understood her need for sanctity, for peace and for a little bit of faith in something. He started to need that, rather than just letting himself get the better of him all the time. So he went home for Christmas, following his Mother to the church and sat listening to the songs with intrigue. It was all from another world and existence, a muggle faith, but in the evening…it had stuck with him. It became his little prayer in his own world – it was his that he clung onto secretly. And his mother loved him more than anything for it.  
  
'Keep me as the apple of my eye…hide me in the shadow of thy wings'.  
  
And now, when there was no escape, he said it all to himself, to whoever was out there – to Hermione and Harry, desperately wishing the same thing for them all.  
  
'Keep me as the apple of my eye, hide me in the shadow of thy wings'.  
  
He felt his arm being grabbed, and his body being lifted from it's slump into an upright position, his back no longer allowed to lean comfortingly against the crumbling plaster of the back wall. He dared open one eye, in hope of finding a way of escaping…if he was going to escape, now would be the chance. But he was still guarded, there was a wand half a meter away from his heart, pointing directly at it. For it's part, his heart seemed to want to stop beating so fast…for a reprieve from it's endless pounding.  
  
He made to move to the left and forward, to try and scramble through the death eater's legs…but to no avail. His back sent shockwaves of pain rushing over him, that stopped the attempt from being a scramble to a jerky crawl. He was too slow. Within a second of moving, all three wands were pressed against his forehead, all three masks closer than they were before – the eyes behind them glinting through eerily.  
  
They didn't need to say anything to make him stop in his tracks. To be honest, he hadn't expected to live after the wands had hit his forehead, but there he still was, breathing heavily, feeling more claustrophobic and trapped by the second. And he had good reason to as well; he was trapped. There was no escape now, unless by some miracle Sirius, Harry, Hermione – anyone on his side – burst through the door right then and there.  
  
'Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me…'  
  
But nobody was coming.  
  
The wands were moved away from his forehead and back at his heart again. Then it started to sink in that unless forced, they weren't going to kill him. The wands were there for show and they would be used, but to kill him? No. They'd sent for a dementor…he remembered a conversation with Harry in his third year. 'Professor Lupin says…well, he reckons that the dementors kiss is a fate worse than death – can you imagine it, being just a body, with nothing inside?' But at the time, he'd said that the dementors kiss was acceptable and a good thing – Black deserved it at the time.  
  
His mind had changed the moment the door to the house had opened, and just under the swaying robes of the death eaters, he saw it approach. But much more than seeing it, he felt it approach. The rush of cold air, his breath quickened in his throat, inhaling the cold air and feeling it numb his mind and his soul. Things became confusing all at once – his world was being turned upside down in his head…hope? He had no hope… Friends weren't going to come…why would they? …He had no faith – faith…he mind desperately started to cling onto anything it could to keep him sane…  
  
"My – my soul…takes refuge in you…" He whispered as one by the one the death eaters moved aside, turning their faces away from him. "And in the shadows of your wings…" he sped up his speech, as everything he hated about his life came back to him; every guilty feeling he'd ever had, every time he'd made his mother cry. It was pain without being hit with anything tangible. His back no longer hurt him so much. Oh god…he was going, he was going to fall and never get back up again… "I will…I will…take…refuge…"  
  
It was much like slipping down a steep slope. It must have been quick for anyone to watch, but it took a lifetime for him to process. A putrid, rotting grey hand, skin calloused and slack came out from the dementors robe.  
  
It touched his face.  
  
Sometime in the process Ron found the strength even in the blackness that covered him to throw up. His robes were ruined. His best robes that Percy had given him. He loved those robes…  
  
Careless…stupid…idiot…Ron…  
  
The hood was lifted down.  
  
The dementor's breath rattled, as the stench of it hit his nose and engulfed him.  
  
'Hide me…'  
  
_I'm Ron…I'm Ron Weasley…Ron Wealsey…Ron…Harry's fr – Harry? He's…Harry is…Ron…I'm Ron…I'm –_  
  



End file.
